Wind Turbines are a great way of producing electricity from a renewable source as they do not produce any emissions. However, there are questions over whether wind turbines are really worth it. One of the world’s windiest advanced nations, the UK, already has over 1,600 wind turbines attached to it’s national electricity grid.

According the the UK’s National Grid though, in the five month period between the start of October 2006 and the end of February 2007, at a time when there should be plenty of wind around, there were 17 days when output was less than ten percent of capacity. Delving deeper, the figures show that in five days during the period, output was less than five percent, and on one poor day, output was just two percent of capacity. Over the entire five month period, the wind turbines averaged a poor 35% efficiency overall.

The National Grid say that wind turbines would be able to contribute 2.5 % of generation capacity if they were working at maximum capacity. So while wind turbines are a great way to produce electricity, it is obvious that they cannot be relied upon to produce the electricity that is required and that other forms of more reliable energy sources must be used in order to satisfy demand.

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